Bobby versus Jindal

To understand why Bobby Jindal did so poorly in the Republican response to President Obama’s first address to the nation, you have to understand the South. You have to understand its anti-intellectualism and unrelenting social pressures on the individual to conform to fundamentalist cultural norms.

After Jindal spoke, I received a text message from a friend who lives in South Louisiana. His tongue-in-cheek message: "I did not know that Bobby Jindal was the son of poor Indian immigrants." Jindal had never spoken of his immigrant roots or Indian culture in any of his previous campaigns. In fact his father is a engineer and mother a nucelar physicist. Jindal "went there" because he knows, in his heart, that the only reason the party of white southern men were touting him as their savior was because they are desperate for an antidote to Obama.

Like Obama, Jindal grew up as an outsider. However, Obama was raised in multi-cultural Hawaii, while Jindal had to find his way in white, conservative Baton Rouge. At some point Obama had to make a choice, and he embraced, with exuberance, black culture. As he told Steve Croft of 60 Minutes "I am firmly entrenched in the African-American community."

As a person of color growing up in Baton Rouge, Jindal, also had to make choice. Only his options were not as easy as Obama’s. I have no doubt that Jindal faced discrimination, even racial taunts, growing up in Baton Rouge. The Indian community in Louisiana is small, and little Bobby had to look outward. Intellectually, an alliance with Baton Rouge’s large African-American community would not make sense to the son of an immigrant. Choosing to live an economically marginalized life in Scotlandville - the neighborhood surrounding historically black Southern University would not have seen viable to young Bobby. So, he chose to cast his fate with white Baton Rouge. But in order to do so, he had to de-emphasize the Jindal and focus on the Bobby. It was a Faustian deal.

White southerners believe that they are under siege. The passing of the 1964 Voting Rights Act created the ascendancy of the black political class. The four largest cities in Louisiana are run by black mayors. White children still ride in pick-up trucks with rebel flags on back windows, but Lil Wayne is blasting on the radio. Well-paying, blue-collar jobs have been lost to globalization and white southerners have turned to the churches - the last bastion of unfiltered and untouched white protestant culture – for safety. It is in this environment that Jindal came of age.

And the times are still changing in the South. The black quarterback that brings the mythical black championship at LSU is worshipped. Blacks are now allowed to join the all-white club, but no pretenders are allowed in. Only anti-abortionists, those against gun control and anti-intellectuals are admitted.

And finally, members must be anti-government.

"Government forced me to go school with blacks. I got passed over for supervisor in the plant because the government forced the company to promote blacks. Government has failed to protect our borders and now we find ourselves minorities in our own country."

Needless to say, some white folks are angry. You need only to have seen Rush Limbaugh, throwing red meat to the mob on Saturday at CPAC, to be reminded of "white" rage.

So little Bobby dranked the Kool Aid and became a white Southerner. As Jeremiah Wright preached in a sermon about Clarence Thomas, "he got Rome on his mind" and for "acceptance," Bobby had to publicly deny his immigrant past and embrace the cultural and religious dogma of the white south.

But the Gods have a wicked sense of humor. Barack Obama became President of the United States. Along with his unlimited political skills, he used his blackness and his "child of the world" biography as a calling-card to lead the new multi-racial America in the 21st century.

The Republicans now find themselves reduced to a 20-state party. But, they too, have been blessed with a young, talented, person-of-color. Jindal could take on what the Republican leadership could not understand, the diversifying of America. But Jindal does not understand this new phenonomenon either. The Louisiana governor, long ago, gave up the cultural sensibilities needed to guide the Republican Party back out of the wilderness.

So on Tuesday night, at a seminal moment in his life and Republican politics, Jindal responded to Obama like a white southerner. His praising of Obama's campaign and victory to the White House was condescending. He, of all people, should have known that America moved beyond that right after Inauguration night. His telling of his immigrant past sounded fake because he had never told it before and, thus he was unable to put it in context of who he is. He argued that government was evil – white anger, rearing its head, again- at a time when the whole world is looking to the American government to pull it from the abyss of a global depression.

I don t buy that Jindal's national aspirations are over. He can still lead the Republican Party out of the wilderness. However, to do so, he needs to take a trip into the wilderness and find himself. He needs to see if it is not too late for him to reconnect to his immigrant past. He needs to be honest with himself and the Republican Party about what is means to be a person of color in 21st century America. The Republicans desperately need a Indian Jindal and America needs a modern Republican Party.